


I Have Been Faithful to Thee, In My Fashion

by SemicircleJones



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst, Banter, Blood Kink, Deception, F/M, Femdom, Flirting, Grima is a delusional aesthete, Hypnosis, Internal Conflict, Interrogation, Kleptomania, Magic, Manipulation, Masochism, Non-Consensual Elements, One-Sided Relationship, Pining, Power Dynamics, Role Reversal, Sexual Tension, Stalking, Unrequited Love, Voyeurism, spitting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:46:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25518268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SemicircleJones/pseuds/SemicircleJones
Summary: Grima Wormtongue has kept a close eye on Lady Eowyn these past years, scheming with the White Wizard while orchestrating Rohan to fall into his hands— all for the sake of winning over the King's lovely niece. But blinded by desire and idolatry, he does not perceive that his cunning muse has been aware of his true loyalties for some time, and soon find himself utterly defenseless to her methods of exacting justice.
Relationships: Éowyn/Gríma Wormtongue
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,  
>  But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,  
> Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;  
> And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,_
> 
> _Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:_  
>  _I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion._

Grima fumbled desperately through the drawers of Eowyn’s empty chambers, knowing his presence there was unwanted— and his time measured. Unsatisfied with his findings, his eyes wandered to a grand wardrobe that leaned enticingly against the room’s back wall.  


After a moment’s struggle, he pried it open, and his senses were bathed in the myriad jewels and glinting sets of armor which hung about its walls. He pressed his face to the surface of the green velvets and silken reds of the gowns he had seen Eowyn wear, catching sight of a gold plated girdle which had been fastened around a white chemise. 

He took it, letting his fingers slide through each jeweled facet, the linked chains seeming to twinkle and sway for his sole delight. Kneeling to kiss its gilded surface, he fancied himself her twisted acolyte, having received a token of favour from his _princesse lointaine_.

Outside, accusations of  _ “Stop, thief!”  _ rang from the town square, though as sweet irony would have it, they were not for him. He recalled the smirk he had hidden while putting his farce into motion, rushing into the great hall, all panic and flailing arms, “ _ a thief has breached the south wall!”  _ and the excitement he had felt as he watched each of the guards’ backs disappear into the courtyard before slithering into Eowyn’s chambers, unnoticed, to collect his prize. 

Already, he had taken so much from Rohan’s treasuries, but he thought it only fair that he should add to his collection a true ‘gift’; a symbol of his dedication to the Lady whom Saruman had promised him. Looking through the prizes at his disposal, his heart was pounding vividly in his chest, and he floundered to make a decision. Ah, which to choose, which treasure to keep for his own?

Grima’s ears pricked at the shouts of indignation and the rattling of armour sounding from the guards outside. He glanced through the window to spy an innocent traveling merchant struggling in the hands of the men he had ordered to search the wall. 

He felt a tinge of guilt for the sufferings of the martyred merchant, who had been condemned in the wake of his frivolous schemes; but the heady flavor of guilt only served to enliven the lurid tints of the magnificent wardrobe. The rustlings of the fabrics, the incandescence of the precious heirloom stones, and all the exclusive material sumptuousness ministered to the Counselor's face rich sighs of intoxication. 

Though he often decorated himself in the decadent fabrics and spoils of his position, no amount of furs or riches could hide the eeriness of his natural appearance. His moon-rock skin was wet and without color, so starved and untouched, his diminutive frame hunched and stiffened as if deformed by his thoughts. 

As a traitor among suspecting men, Grima’s gaze was always controlled and careful like a hunted animal— but it widened covetously whenever it was fixed on Eowyn, his pupils shrinking like needles into the strange pale of his eyes. It was her cruel virtuousness that drew him to the king’s niece, who was so unlike him, so unbending was her will— overflowing with a cold, white light and a certain nobility. Whenever he passed Éowyn in the great hall, he noted how the golden hearthfire of her humble kingdom of Rohan had woven itself into her features, simple yet lovely, like a harvest maiden in some pastoral idyll. For years he had watched the swift sureness of Eowyn’s movements, haunted the waves of her gilded hair with hungry eyes. 

Yet, hidden within her airy graces he sometimes caught sight of some distant, turbulent passion, contained in the tension of her steps— suggesting a fiery and unyielding hidden nature held carefully at bay. The Lady, when seated in the court, looked beautiful and terrifying as an angel of judgement. 

He couldn’t help but entertain how fitting the notion was— how her face twisted with disgust when he spoke, as if his careful words were sinuous snakes feeding dull venom to her brain. What an exquisite burn it was, when she looked at him as if he were less human than a writhing worm; but oh, he could only imagine what riches of hateful words would rise to her teeth, if only she could see into his mind. If only she knew that he dared follow her behind heavy-lidded eyes into the most private recesses of the night. 

His thin, greyish lip gave a twitch of delight at the thought of her finding him out, of discovering the full extent of his treacherousness; of his willing servitude to the dark sorcerer Saruman, his betrayal of Rohan— and most of all, the extent of his perverse obsession with her.

The sudden sound of approaching footsteps tore Grima from his reverie. He had run out of time. As he hurriedly made his way to the door, his eyes met a white handkerchief draped over a wooden nightstand. He had seen her use it only once, to dab some blood off her mouth after cutting it accidentally during one of her more passionate sword-practice sessions in the armory. Knowing the fabric had touched her lip, and perhaps more importantly, collected the riches of her blood, made him all the more eager to have it in his possession. He quickly slipped it into his pocket before scurrying downstairs, assuming a mask of concern as he made his way to the great hall.

Pretending to dab the sweat off his brow, Grima at last entered the hall of the King of Rohan, where he found his presence had been sorely missed. The merchant had been cuffed and was struggling in the arms of two guards before being helplessly thrown at the feet of King Theoden. 

The king sat limply on his throne. His face was turned toward the condemned man but his eyes stared sightlessly into some void of mirrored air. The White Wizard’s magic had taken over the once-great king’s mind and body, rendering him helpless to Grima’s enchanted words. Everything was falling into place; the beloved king was now a shell of a man and nothing more than a figure-head to his people, a symbol they could put their faith in while his seemingly loyal counsellor ruled from the shadows. But although he had orchestrated the king’s descent, Grima knew he was merely an instrument as well, the eyes and ears of his true master. Yes, it was Grima’s words the court heeded, but it was Saruman’s hands that pulled the strings of the puppet-king, watching from his distant tower as he staged Rohan’s quiet dance into ruin. 

“Does this man not deserve a fair trial? I went with the guards myself and saw no sign of a breach within the southern wall,” a disdainful voice sounded from behind the throne.

Standing on the other side of the king was Eomer, Eowyn’s insolent brother. If anyone stood between Grima and his dreams of love and prestige, it was this gadfly who seemed to linger only to put a dent in each of the counsellor’s plans. The tall, lionlike warrior surpassed him greatly in physical prowess, and he knew it was only because of his position that Grima was not slaughtered like a pig. The eyes of the king’s nephew bore into him hatefully, but Grima could not help stifling a grin knowing Eomer was powerless as long as he still held sway over the king.

“Who are you to question the king’s orders? This man is to be arrested for trespassing without valid permission. No trial is necessary, for I think we can agree that snivelling look on his face is evidence enough,” Grima paced about the hall as he spoke, searching every one of the guards for proof that the spell on his tongue was still working.

The merchant writhed in his bonds, claiming innocence through tears of confusion. There was a strange sort of catharsis in this for the Counsellor, watching a man punished for his crime in place of him. It displaced any guilt, reasoned away any sentiment, while still allowing him to feel traces of his own desperation echoed in the cries of the poor merchant. Never before had he been able to access such intricate pleasures.

Catching a flash of white move beyond the courtyard, he suddenly paused, his mouth tightening slightly as he watched Eowyn enter the hall.

She paused, standing slightly away from the guards to dissect the scene. Her gaze darted about the room before landing on his wild stare; her eyes condemned him mercilessly, searing gray mirrors of unwelcome truth. At once, he perceived himself in her presence as some polymeric beast, an inflated white spider swollen with stolen blood; all ape and no substance. 

He was suddenly reminded of his ‘token of favor’. The skin on his face burned as he discreetly slipped a hand into the pocket of his robe to rub the finely woven linen of the stolen handkerchief stuffed clumsily inside. As the merchant wailed at his sentence, Grima’s fingers tightened around the fabric. In his mind, Eowyn’s presence seemed to warp the man’s despair into a premonition of his own arrest and condemnation, and his stomach twisted with shame. 

“On second thought... Perhaps we have reason to believe this man was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. Let him go, but keep a close watch on the south wall to ensure we have no further trouble.” 

Avoiding Eowyn’s eyes, Grima dismissed the guards. Creeping back into the passageway toward his own chambers, his skin prickled with growing paranoia. The sureness of her expression had chilled him keenly; it was as if she knew what he had taken, as if those contemplating eyes had seen through every lie.

Either way, what was he doing wasting time on such frivolities? He had become so drunk on the power of Saruman’s magic and the position it lent him that he was becoming too careless in his indulgences. If he continued running about the castle, looting whatever he pleased, it wouldn’t be long until someone learned of his treachery. 

That night, as Grima slunk through the shaded corridors of the castle’s courtyard, he caught a glimpse of Eowyn’s seated figure. His breath hitched; he was pleasantly surprised, though it was not unusual for her to wander the castle unattended in the long hours of the night. Closing his cloak around his figure like a snare, he crept silently through the darkness in an effort to prolong his voyeurism— but found his efforts were in vain when he moved clumsily into the light of a newly-lit candle. He winced as she turned toward him, narrowing her eyes in greeting. 

“Ah, Grima, it seems you’ve blessed us with your presence in the court once more. Where would the king be without his ‘loyal’ advisor?” Her emphasis on the word unnerved him. “How grateful we are,” she added in a biting tone.

“I am simply here to help lead Rohan to victory against the wicked forces at hand; and it is my pleasure, I assure you,” He replied, grinning unpleasantly. 

“How agreeable of you.” She arched a brow at his covetous gaze. “What else is my lord's pleasure, I wonder?” She asked bitterly.

Gríma clicked his greyish tongue, his eyes wandering from hers. “Do not ask questions to which you would not have true answers, my lady.”

Éowyn glared at him, her cheeks reddening with indignation. Or was that something else? 

“Just as I was beginning to believe you had limits to your dishonor… You wear your name well,  _ Wormtongue _ .”

“You could never know how well...” 

She scoffed at the indecent remark as he winded back around the table, pacing aimlessly closer to her seat. 

“Honor is constricting, it binds you to codes— knowing my lady well, I can see that following orders does not suit her... But  _ dishonor _ …” His long, careful fingers played with the fur trim of his cloak, “knows nothing of limits…”

Éowyn made a small sound— a rueful laugh, perhaps. “Then you are a snake. Such words could lead kingdoms astray...” she murmured, tightening her grip on the arms of her chair. “But your talents are wasted. You must think my virtue is in grave danger don’t you?” 

He cast her a sly grin. “Only if you consider me a temptation, my lady.”

She opened her mouth to return the cutting remark, but instead a long, laboured look replaced the glint in her eye. “I am content with my life here, temptation has no place in my heart…” 

“My brave Éowyn, you are far from being content...” Gríma’s voice snaked through her, his knowing words laced with a violating warmth.

“You hunger for sacrifice, for shared glory and martyred blood…” his eyes fell to her lower thigh, where he knew she had strapped a dagger beneath her skirts in case of attack, “Your place is at the frontlines— as a warrior, not as the pretty niece whose only service to her country is in dabbing the spit from the mouth of an ailing king. The life you dearly want has been denied you for so long, yet you are allowed no honorable death in return.”

There was an indignant pause. “When I was a child, magicians used to fool me _ , _ ” She began at last, with affected condescension. “With their swirling mists, their velvety shrouds and perfumed words— because I saw only their charms, not what they were made to hide. But I’m older now, and an example to my people— and I’ve learned that there’s nothing wrong in giving my service for nothing in return…It is a matter of loyalty. As hard as that may be for  _ you  _ to understand...” 

The way she trailed over the words, so hatefully, sent an ache through his heart— a pain so keen it rivaled joy in its lingering burn. Ah! All his thoughts, he mused bitterly, seemed to gather in the same gutter...

He crept closer still, pausing to watch the floor blindly. 

“Don’t you see what it is? It’s not natural. To suffer at a great expense for something you want, that is natural. To reach out and take what you want, that is natural. But to get your pleasure from not taking, by cheating yourself deliberately, don’t you see what a black thing that is for a man to do?”

He looked over, unblinkingly, to catch the sight of her startled eyes. He recalled how he sold himself to Saruman, knowing full well there would be no end to his servitude, no promise that could measure the pain of having given his humanity away freely. He was expendable to that scheming wizard, who would have him killed when he was no longer of use. Who had him tortured, corrupted beyond reason, whittled away and rebuilt. But why, then? What was the strange allure which tied him to that distant tower, sealing his once formless mind into a circle, turning in on itself again and again? All roads seemed to lead to Orthanc, all thoughts seemed to gather at the points of that spiked tower, suspended in the air like a knife. Yes, it was not just a physical place but a mental one; that tower which penetrated every corner of his mind.

He furrowed his brow, a look of pain coming over him as the words seemed to carry themselves like the tremulous drawing of a breath.

“How it is to hate yourself, hate the ways that turned you away from who you could have been, from those who could have loved you… to turn your back on your brothers, when you wanted nothing more for them to call you one of their own … and for that I am guilty, and I continue this charade, just to live, and be guilty…” 

A deep silence enveloped the courtyard. The windows seemed to darken in color, the bluish tint of stained glass casting its web of prophetic shapes across the space between them. Eowyn’s gaze cast itself through him like a cruel mirror of light, and he averted his eyes. It was a strange confession to make, he knew— but he couldn’t bear these games any longer. A long-silenced, restless part of him wanted her to know, he wanted to make her see him as he was. 

It was the skills he was promised, Grima told himself. That was why he sold himself to Saruman. The skills of artificing, the illusory surfaces that the wizard of many colors had taught him to weave, that must be why he stayed by his side— it allowed him the charm to influence those around him, to weaken them as he had been weakened. That, and the riches of hidden knowledge and unknown sensations Saruman promised to unveil….Though there were still many mysteries his master withheld from him; he knew he was but a cog in his catastrophic machine. Yet, one look into the White Wizard’s cup and he was drawn to the life-blood it held, which with one sip promised to steal him away— away from the starved outline of dreams left lifeless as the stone walls that held them. To drink from his cup, to taste its pleasures— for that he had sold the freedom of his people. 

But what bound him still to Rohan? Despite all this, it seemed he could not escape. He could not escape the White Lady’s reign over him just as he could not escape the White Wizard’s. He had chosen to betray the life he was born to, to turn his back on it just as it had turned its back on him— all the while denying himself what he truly wanted; a home in the hearts of his people. And so, the very promise of power had made him its slave. 

While Rohan still had a chance to break away from Saruman’s web of deceit, Grima wondered if he could ever unravel the paradox he had sewn himself into. And yet, there seemed a slight change in the young shieldmaiden’s eyes that shook him out of his self-contained rumination. In slow waves, he began to realize that he had likely revealed too much to her. Why had he been compelled to lay bare the absurd convulsions of his poor, brimming heart? 

“And you expect me to believe in your sincerity, when you haven’t uttered a word of truth from the moment I met you?”  She responded suddenly, her eyes fixed upon his with curiosity instead of anger.

“I believe that truth has only one face: that of a violent contradiction.” Though the words gave him much pain, he couldn’t help but smile a little at his reply; for they were truer than even she could know.

Eowyn seemed to consider this for a brief moment before conceding,  “Contradiction? A rather convenient notion, especially for you. However…” Her playful expression hardened thoughtfully, “That would mean you only relish in your descent because you still know what the right thing to do is; there would be no pleasure without righteous condemnation, awareness of your own transgression. You’re locking your cage from the inside,” Eowyn stood up in her chair to leave, “It’s getting late. Don’t you ever sleep, Counsellor? Though I’m sure sleep doesn’t come easy to the likes of you. Why don’t you think about what you really want, instead of playing these perverse games with yourself?” 

Taken aback by her earnest response, his eyes met hers for as long as he could bear as he tried to dissect the intent behind her words.  _ What I really want... _

Gríma turned to watch as she made her way across the courtyard, her flaxen hair and billowing white robes carving a river of light through the stone corridors. Creaking open Meduseld’s grand doorway, she stole a glance at him before slipping into the darkened hall. 

“Perverse games, hm? My dear lady, you don’t know the half of it…” Grima whispered to himself once the courtyard was clear. He waited under the stars a while before making his careful way to the only window still lit this far into the night, knowing full well who was lying restlessly awake inside. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to write this after reading the books/watching the movies for the first time as I found Wormtounge's character to be one of the most intriguing; there are many aspects of his life/personality which are only hinted at, but never fleshed out in the books or movies, and this is my attempt at exploring this complicated character. Several features of this story are non-canon, or headcanons, such as the specifics of Grima's use of Saruman's magic. There is also a chance that Eowyn will wander into being more out of character in future chapters, mostly to suit my fucked up whims, although I could personally see her going down this road. This could be considered an alternate timeline of sorts. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,  
>  And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;  
> My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,  
> At random from the truth vainly expressed;  
> For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,  
> Who art as black as hell, as dark as night _."__  
>  -From Shakespeare's Sonnet 147

Underneath Eowyn’s window, Grima pressed his face to the handkerchief he had stolen from her chambers earlier that day, fancying her some cruel goddess while delegating to his imaginary self the role of humble acolyte. The cloth was simple and not the elegant gold-plated girdle he had intended to take, but it had since become more to him than a product of petty thievery. In his mind alone, it was a symbol of his secret devotion to her. 

He began to rub himself against the stone wall, the dingy surface now a shrine delivering the most profane of pleasures as he envisioned her in all the attitudes that excited him most; her winding jewels and her raucous laugh rattling the gold against her neck. He imagined her lip curled back over that rack of crystalline teeth, laughing at him. What bliss it was, to burn too long into that doomed circle of desire, where snakes devoured themselves in their passion. Visions of divine beauty were hopelessly exalted in these most wretched of positions; sprawled recklessly to allow his hips to give in earnest their most desperate movements to the unclean, footless wall of stone.

Its surface was cold to the touch, a flat image with no foothold, no notch to secure a finger to. It left only the option of clawing helplessly as a half-crushed insect, bending its neck to heaven for one sweetly spittled drop of honey-- perversity seeking its release as one pathetic gasp of unattainable desire. 

Grima lamented that the persuasive magic Saruman gifted him with had one, painful condition; it barred him from touching those who fell under his spell, lest it be unraveled. Yet he found a part of him reveled in the sweet torments this condition evoked. He imagined Eowyn would watch him with the detachment of an analyst while not permitting him to touch her, but merely stay on his knees, defiling himself in her presence. How she would watch him, without a hint of affection in her smile, haughty with childish disdain. 

Yet perhaps a hint of horror, of fascination— what delight there is in being the condemned one, the unwanted one, the grotesquely detested one, in the eyes of her, who he loved! How his passion for her poured out underneath him like a wound— his passion was always like a wound— how hotly it ran and stiffly it dried, how it always opened more painfully again. How sharp that pain was when touched, how keenly it needed to be nursed again and again against the cold stone wall, against the palm of his opened hand. 

The swelling, the infection came over him like a fever, an infection so skillfully spread all throughout his groin, now uncomfortably stiffened, and he was taking care to move slowly, though his senses were panicked and hungry. 

He buried his nose in the fumes of the stolen lace cloth, stifling his labouring breaths against its fabric, woven delicately as a once-white rose heavy with acrid perfume. The still wall of stone felt so rigid against the painful yearning of his frenzied movements, trying in vain to conjure life into the cold, unyielding surface. 

Grima could not tell if she was there by the angle which he positioned himself, yet he grew that much more excited at the possibility of her glancing out the window for a moment to find him, utterly unrestrained, seemingly unable to control himself if he wanted to-- compulsively moving with an urgent greed that drove him to such calculated acts of wantonness, diminishing all sense of self-awareness in its hold over him. 

Still, he feared this aspect of his nature, knowing he would risk everything, most willingly his pride, for a mere moment of pleasure. Though he longed to be more than what he was, he knew that it was for this very reason that he would always be a servant, someone’s right-hand man; condemned to live out his days crawling with his belly to the floor like a snake. Yet it was this acknowledgement of his loathsome nature that seemed to propel him, enliven his senses; this tormented cycle punctuated by moments of pleasure that crashed continuously in on itself, keeping him from the things he wanted most.

He was moving very slowly now, with each movement threatening to send him over the edge of some bestial void, but he dared not cross it. He wanted to revel in this moment forever-- the pale, glacial light glowing softly from her window which illuminated him out in the open like a feral cat, rutting desperately against the wall and hidden clumsily by a mere shadow which only thinly concealed his movements.

Craning his neck over the window pane, he caught a glimpse of Eowyn’s sleeping form. She appeared to him, her slender body draped restlessly over the mattress, more natural and unguarded than ever before. Leaning curiously closer, he saw that her sides were rising and falling rapidly beneath the thin silk nightgown that clung to her usually dignified form, her golden head buried in her hands. At first Grima merely took this to be the result of a particularly intense dream, but as he made out the sound of a muffled sob caught in the thick furs of her bedding, he came to the realization that she must be crying in her sleep. 

His eager fantasies dissolving suddenly, he felt a strange tenderness rise to betray them. Despite himself, Grima recalled from many years ago the lonely little girl who had been taken to live in Meduseld after the death of the king’s brother. It was then, too, that he heard her weep quietly when the armory was empty, training alone with the dream of earning glory in the eyes of her people. He would occasionally pass by to comfort her, with the purpose of believing it tactful to earn favor with the king’s relatives. He was younger then, having just secured a place in the royal court to avoid the dangers of war while planning his rise to power. Disregarding the scorn of his colleagues who saw him for what he was, Grima advanced only because King Theoden held faith in the strategically placed words of his servant. 

But the more often he saw the young Eowyn training alone, her weakness becoming determination, the more he felt a certain solidarity in their mutual isolation, for he felt they were both out of place in the castle’s ancient halls, fostering separate but solitary dreams that would come to obsess them. In those days, he had often laughed at Theoden’s foolishness and fantasized with a hateful giddiness that, with enough power, he could one day arrange his untimely death and unravel the haughty defenses of his young niece to take her as his wife.

And yet here he was outside her window, twisted by the same servitude and impossible longing that had plagued his life from birth; while she too was still denied the valor of her dreams, lingering alone in Meduseld’s great halls while her brothers fought and died in her place. He could see in her troubled sleep that it weighed on her, and it occasionally pricked at his conscience to know that it was only for the King’s good nature that Grima had been able to weaken him, to the ruin of the people he had once called his own. 

He knew that it was because of his treachery that she had fallen to such anguish, even if she did not know it; and yet he could not stop now, not when he had come so far. Still, he felt oddly compelled to go to her to assuage his nagging guilt, or perhaps, he thought with a cringe, because he knew that despair would leave her more receptive...

Crumpling the handkerchief in his hand, he shoved it into his coat pocket before standing up to tighten his robes. Stealing into the shadows of the overhead columns, he silently creaked open the doors to the great hall. The dark, labyrinthine passage was vacant but for the flickering of dying candlelight which cast an uneasy shade of orange upon the empty seats.

As he made his way down the steps to her room, his shadow floated close behind like a prying stranger he could never quite manage to outwit. He recoiled with a slight horror at the long silhouette which traced the stone walls, its figure so distorted it was almost unrecognizable; hook-nosed and hunched over like a rat. As the lighting shifted, his shadow was thrown across the floor in front of him until at last he came to her bright doorway, surprised to find it left clumsily ajar. He took in a deep breath, trying to center his mind, rehearsing the words to the spell he would use to coax her out of her usual prickliness. But as he slipped silently through the crack, he was taken by what he saw. 

There was an unguarded purity about Eowyn in this state, dressed simply in a loose night-robe and leaning to weep silently into the thick furs of her bedding. His gaze, pale and unblinking as some hunted creature, collected every fold and reveled in each dip and curve of the billowing chemise which loosely encircled her. Traces of her chest and legs fell in and out of sight through the soft rays of light clinging to the linen robes which thinly framed her like a stone under running water. But it was the hushed cries rattling her soft form that sobered him from his reverie; how each sigh was caught by the heavy furs she held herself to, as if suddenly aware of her fragility, knowing to shield it away from the cold, jagged world. 

He wanted to throw himself at her feet like a sinner to an altar, her purity radiant and condemning as light through stained glass. It was truly a testament to the depths of his sin that he could make one so beautiful reach such pitfalls of despair. Yet, for the first time, he saw himself in her fragility. He knew that it could only be through desperation, not love, that they would find a path to each other. For she was everything he was not; valiant, loyal, beautiful, unrelenting; it was only in their misfortune that they were similar. 

Still, he found some part of him  enjoyed the innocence of unhappiness and of helplessness; could he blame himself for a sin which attracted him, which flooded him with pleasure precisely to the extent it brought him to despair?

His shadow was cast more sharply across the wall beside them, spindly and bent as an insect-- and it grew to enclose the entire room in darkness as each step brought him closer to the foot of her bed. He evoked a minor illusory spell, feeling the dark, silvery enchantment rising in his throat.

“Perhaps I’m not the only one of us who plays games with themselves… Could it be that the king’s proud niece also knows little of what she really wants?” 

Eowyn’s quiet weeping was silenced by a jolt of alarm. She sat up to glare at him over her shoulder, her eyes filled with pain more than anger.

“Get out of here! Do you think that because of your position alone you can just walk in here whenever you please? I’ll have the guards called for this!” Although her words were sharp, he sensed little resolve behind them.

“Shhh…” 

He sat beside her, careful not to get too close. He knew from many trials and errors that the hypnotic spell he cast over Eowyn would break the moment he laid his hand on her. The tragic irony of this arrangement was almost humorously cruel in its effect on him; that he could hold such power over others with words alone-- but at the moment of true connection he would return to nothing. 

Still, it took all his willpower to resist reaching out to touch her, to bind her mind in circles with his skillful fingers. Yes, to immerse her deeply in a spell of fingers and tongues, working in hypnotic union to wash her troubles down a wine of dark forgetfulness; pouring back each shivering drop before leaning over, bleary-eyed, to gaze into the emptied glass, hoping to find traces of eternity there…. 

Such dreams had scattered his thoughts, and he paused to collect his purpose. Looking into her eyes, he recalled again the Eowyn he had distantly known, gazing back at him expectantly through a veil of tears. Unreachable, unmovable, but tenderly heard through the haze of the spell to remind him that the turn of her heart stood on the edge of a coward’s lie. 

“Listen, I only wanted to continue our discussion. Your tears suggest that perhaps you’ve found yourself ensnared in a cage of sorts, just as I have….” he leaned closer as she turned away, his voice winding behind her ears, “You once told me that was your only fear...‘To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire’... How unfair that fate should find you in just that--”

“The only one who’s ensnared me is you!” She stood up suddenly from the bed, walking defiantly nearer to the door, “Leave me alone, snake!”

Grima could see that she was resisting the magic’s growing influence over her; it would require a more powerful enchantment to weaken her defenses. Hurriedly, he caressed the mark Saruman had branded into the skin of his arm, working the spell with his fingers until at last he drew out the silvered voice to its fullest power. Laid thick with purpose yet hushed as a melody, it slowly unwound from his throat like a radiant worm. He could feel the magic instill a sharpened power to his pre-existing thoughts, giving flight to words he had felt so keenly but could not express. Careful as a spider, he began to weave a veil of silver words to fill her newly opened mind, lulling it to sleep to forget the prison Meduseld had become to her. The hypnotic words left his lips, gently, flowingly, like a man possessed;

“My lady Eowyn, 

clad in silvers like a lily-maid,

I from a slumber deepest stirred

to speak to you now, that my prayers be heard, 

Not cast aside to hear no more a muttered word.

For my words to reach you now, I pray,

The tears whereon the lattice-work of your dewy sister-eyelids lay 

While dreaming on your damask cheek, they drift and carry away.

To drown beneath the great white crevice where your neck gives way

Bending, toward the broidery-frame, where rhymes are dazzled from their place

You weave a loom of ordered words which now divided race,

to steal the colour from your eyes-- seeking to drink in kind

from wellsprings so clear and sweet, unfairly spilled from your noble mind.

For now I know there is no way, in ending your troubles with things to say, 

That sighs should twist the brow of one so sweet, 

For this my prayers must sorely grieve...”

When he turned to face her again he found her gaze fixed upon his, her gray eyes trembling beneath the teardrops still caught in her pale, feathered lashes. Grima was struck by her expression, and he could see that the spell was beginning to have an effect on her. She had never looked at him this way; his skin ached at the sight. But he could see in her eyes that what little hope remained in Eowyn’s heart lay at the edge of a knife. If he coaxed her to stray even a little, she might drift into that same unknown country he had fallen into, where all roads were darkened and ran together in confusion. 

Without thinking, he reached out to caress a loch of her wheat-colored hair, lost in the rising and falling of her shoulders with the slowing of her breath. Reverently moving his hand down the side of her face, his heart grew red and tender as a bruise. He felt as though he had loved her for a lifetime, if only from behind a rose-colored veil. 

“So fair, yet so cold; like a morning of pale spring still clinging to winter’s chill...”

Suddenly aware that touching her may have broken the spell, he pulled his hand away and scanned her features for the glimmer of intoxication which meant the charm was still working; he saw instead, to his surprise, some sinister revelation growing in her eyes. 

“Such words, lovely though they were, could land you in more danger than you’d bargained for, Grima,” she responded suddenly, her strange gaze shrouded by the curtains of her hair. 

Panicked by the ambiguity of her response, he responded hesitantly. 

“I have made rather a habit of courting danger, it seems,” he managed, chuckling dryly, “A poor habit at that, for someone who does not particularly like risking his own neck.” 

Éowyn shifted.“Please,” she responded strangely, tracing the embroidery at the front of her tunic with gentle, teasing fingers. “You  _ love  _ risking your own neck.” 

“Oh?” Gríma bent a knee lightheartedly, offering his neck in a sign of feigned reverence. “And would you do me the honor, my lady?” 

“Oh, certainly,” she said, her voice bright and full of vicious laughter. “A woman who could kill you as soon as look at you, with a brother and cousin who despise you, and with royal blood where you possess none. I daresay you chose where to place your heart rather hastily, my lord.”

Gríma stared back at her, a bit taken by her sudden transparency. He fell silent for a long moment; if this was the card she had decided to play, dangerous though it was, then he was more than glad to match her whimsy. Who was he to deny a maiden of her games?

“I’m afraid you left me little choice but to give my heart to you. How distinguished you are, clad all in white like a Valkyrie in the dream of a wounded soldier…” He reached out to kiss her hand in a show of ingratiating sweetness, but she removed it as swiftly if his lips were a pair of bloodsucking pincers. 

“What do you know of Valkyries, and the wounds of war?” She asked with a shrewd look.

“The struggle for a word of kindness from you, my lady, is enough to wound the noblest of men,” he smiled gingerly.

“But you are not a noble man. For a coward whose preferred weapons are flattering words rather than a sword, you wield them quite carelessly.” 

“And you are very careful with yours, my lady. Though I cannot say the same about your swords, which you hurl about haphazardly; for who knows when one of your imaginary adversaries will strike next?” He chuckled slyly. 

“But if words are  _ your  _ weapon, then your mouth is the source of their power— the source of their magic. The words you weave to poison the king… I wonder if they taste as sweet as they sound…” 

Grima opened his mouth unconsciously at the change in her voice, its usual austerity twisted by desire; though more so out of shock than as an answer to her invitation. Yet any panic over her alarmingly correct deduction was muted by desire as her eyes, like screens of filtered moonlight, slowly fixed upon his with a predatory alertness. She was so close to unraveling the entire charade he had worked years to maintain, and yet all apprehension seemed to have momentarily hidden itself within the most unreachable corners of his mind. He wondered hopefully whether her strange countenance and uncomfortably accurate speculations were merely biproducts of the spell’s lingering influence...

She took his chin in her hand, “Close your eyes, Grima…” 

Eowyn suddenly pulled herself close to him, winding her ripened lips around his grey-white slit of a mouth. Shocked at the sudden eagerness of her passion, he momentarily felt unable to move. But as his mind fell away, each movement of her tongue revealed a new world of sensation; the tenderness of a kiss was one Grima had never known, and he drank from her mouth as needingly as one faint from thirst. 

With subdued horror, he began to feel the lilt of her serpentine tongue curl around the beginning of his throat, which held in its walls the gift of Saruman’s magic. But he could not even pull away, so wanting he was of her touch that the panic only served to enliven his passion. With each suckering pull, he could feel her extracting the magic that gave power to his lies, unraveling the riches of poison he had worked so hard to hide. 

His hand instinctively shot to her side in a feeble attempt to pull her away. But he wavered, unable to part from the waves of euphoria that flared from the sureness of her taking, letting her draw out the last of his power under the twists and turns of her rippling mouth. Falling back into stirring, impure depths he felt the last of the magic disassemble from his ghostly form to move surely into hers, feeling it run to line the walls of her throat with webs of illusory silver... 

When it was done, she pulled away to gaze smilingly at his face, at his eyes twisted with desire. It was over all too soon! A bewildered part of him urgently prepared to feel the tenderness of her lips move into his once more.

Instead he felt a wad of viscous spit hurl onto the side of his lip. For a moment he stood frozen, unable to wipe the obscene spittle from the side of his cheek. This allowed her the luxury of viewing his face, wincing with frustration and unsatisfied longing under the slicked wetness of her generous stain. 

“How helpless you are, without your forked tongue and sorcery to give you all you need... Perhaps it would be more fitting if I had you sentenced to die in the innards of a serpent…” She whispered, her head snaking into the crook of his neck as she rubbed the spittle on his lip with a delicate finger.

A half-restrained cry escaped his lips as his face distorted with the pain of her words and the pleasure of her touch. 

“To have it suck away the power and life from your veins, just as you have to my uncle and the people of Edoras… But I’m sure you’d have no trouble doing that to yourself, would you? Especially now that you’ve given away your only ticket to power, and willingly at that… How adorably pathetic.” 

She was hypnotizing him with words, the way he had tried to do to her. The way she reversed his role and disarmed him of the one weapon that had taken him this far -- it had his mind spinning with confusion and a sickening arousal. The way she nursed the festering wound of his desire with a delicate poison, as soft and tender as a balm on burned skin, was eerily familiar. How did she figure out the source of his magic, or that he had been using it at all? Was she planning to expose him, or was she simply toying with him— relishing in the power she held over him? He knew that she had longed for something more, some agency over her fate. Was this her way of taking it? 

His skin pricked into the sound of her voice all the same, as if the touch she drove over the fine hairs of his skin was a product of tenderness rather than thinly concealed disgust. The way she knowingly teased the bluish white surface of his skin, slicked with her spit, so starved and bloodless and untouched, burned him with all too keen a sting. He was simply too eager to feel the tenderness of another, even if it meant his undoing,  _ especially if it meant his undoing…  _ no, he dared not think on it. He could not allow his illusory efforts, the impenetrable image he had crafted, to be put to shame by this cunning nymph. And yet he feared he had less and less of a choice in the matter as she continued her enchanting charade. 

His face had been turned away in shame, but he now looked up to face her, his heavy-lidded eyes searching her gaze. He allowed his pale tongue to slither from his mouth to taste the saliva that had landed just below his lip. 

“Dearest Eowyn, your cruelty is wasted on me. I'd rather drink the spittle from your mouth than fierce liquors, wine, or opium. Your scornful laughs are like sighs of ambrosia to me,” he leaned closer, perhaps for her to better hear the quiet strain in his voice, “Why? In the dark of the night you trouble my rest, and yet I seek you out to further receive your infection to me. Why, why can’t I kill you within me?” 

Eowyn appeared taken aback and took a broad step away from him. The petty mischief that had tightened her face a moment before was replaced by a look of puzzled innocence. At the sight of her troubled face, glowing softly still, he felt a tepid warmth constrict his chest and send his torment to even greater heights. 

He suddenly moved as if possessed, his blood humming white noise in his ears, anxious to ease himself against the pale gentleness of her skin. With the urgency of a liar on the verge of discovery, he pulled at the loose sides of her collar to draw her close to him. 

“To see the body that burns you, the tender flesh which palpitates and blushes under the spell of so noble a life as yours, so potent a breath…” He pushed his hips into the white silk draped over her wriggling form, feeling the sting of a pleasure that was not his to know. 

“To see it but not to touch it, to think of it but not to feel it…” His voice struggled out as she kicked back feverishly, “don’t you see what a misery that is?” 

He caught a flash of knowing hate in her eyes before she kneed his groin sharply. He let out a half-pained, half excited cry, struggling not to let go of her. When she squirmed free, he caught her again, screwing a hand around her waist which twisted in his arms like a fish ensnared in a hook.

“I long only to dip my cup in your waters, Eowyn sweetest, to taste the wellspring of life hidden so well within your breast…." 

He reached out a hand to caress the side of her face, encoding each curve of bone as if they were the fossils of a rare creature. Her glistening eyes darted about with righteous anger as he dragged his hand down the impossibly soft paleness of her throat, warm and drumming under its thin drape of skin. Though he attempted to pull her closer, she proved too formidable an opponent, and he could feel himself losing under her superior strength. 

He dug his hand into her arm in a desperate spasm of emotion. “Have pity on me! Send me not from your side, I... I’ve only…  _ ever _ served you, my lady…” 

She spat on his face, and he winced with helpless pleasure. “How dare you presume to touch me, worm!”

“Then tell me, tell me how unworthy I am!” He cried, “If I cannot have your love, then spurn me, hate me as passionately!” 

Taking his slackening grip to her advantage, she removed the dagger strapped to her thigh. In a matter of seconds it had sliced through his wrist, and a sudden spasm of pain ran through him as his hold on her was severed. Small beads of blood rose from within him to spill over in thick wells like a spastic disclosure of lust. 

She stepped back, jaw tightening. Her hand, which had been tightly intertwined in his grasp, was cut sharply in the flurry of movement.

A cold gasp bit through the air as he loosened his hold on her, stumbling to the floor. But the sight of her blood as she examined her hand was entirely too pure for him to bear. What a red! A viscous red like the lees of wine dripped delicately from the crisp white of her wrist. They appeared to him as jewels, enseamed so loosely into the robe of her flesh that they scattered wherever her bright hand wandered. He had taken leave of his senses and lost all pretense, any posturing for his lady’s affections which had failed him so long; and he felt a strange relief. Once severing any ties to love or decency there was nothing left but to relish in the fall. 

He saw before him from his place on the floor, in this state of nausea, a sight which enhanced the lingering sting of her defense with a tremor of nervous pleasure. Hair like a shaft of pale sunlight, gilded in evening fires; flesh soft and white as a tall, venereal flower-- a slash of red which his lust had vied into his lady’s hand. Her lovely round eyelids cast down at him, as cold and chaste as moonlight, a certain graceful contempt furrowing her brow. He began to give himself fully to the aesthetic delight, in the bold gleams of yellows and reds, the clashing cymbals of vermilions and chromes that blinded and intoxicated him.

In a deft movement, he took her hand and buried his face hungrily in the wound, lapping delicately at its blood before kneeling at her feet to better taste its dripping over his open, wanting mouth. The pain from his own wrist gave way to convulsive expressions of anguish, and desperate for a cure, he ran his pale tongue over the hot wound which opened a road to his lady’s heart. Under the dark of his rolled-back eyes he saw the plains of her rising shoulders, gorged with blood, emerge from the foam of a purple sea. He tongued the wound as reverently as if it were a ritual chalice, a vessel of eternal life offered to him by the woman he loved, instead of an unwilling slit to her hand. 

He lamented that it was not his first time indulging in the flavor of human blood; he had grown a taste for it in the halls of Orthanc, where he had been forced to feast with the Uruk-hai as a servant of Saruman. But the blood of the virginal White Lady of Rohan was sweet beyond comparison to the men, soiled and torn, that they often made do with. 

She gasped as he hummed and breathed into her opened flesh, closing her eyes for a moment to take in his wanton sobs of pleasure before swiftly pulling her hand away. 

“So this is the wizard’s pet, stripped of his magic…You’re even more twisted than I had sworn you to be. You said before that dishonor knows nothing of limits, and yet I cannot see how you could sink any further, prostrated against an open wound on my hand as if it were my opened lips...” She said at last, and in her hateful bewilderment he detected a strange fascination. 

“Is it so inconceivable to want to infect the new lips that I’d made on you, dear, with a mere kiss? Think of it as a toast to our mutual dishonor. Surely you can’t go on pretending you’ve played no part in this…” He reached hungrily for another drop from her hand, but she maneuvered to let it just barely miss the rim of his mouth. 

“Did you think you could make your heart mine with a few pretty words? I’m afraid no amount of chiding or whimperings of ‘my lady this, my lady that’, will get you anywhere in that regard,” She stepped backward indignantly, gripping the knife still brandished in her right hand.

He lurched forward pleadingly. “Then let me keep my heart to myself, let me destroy it! Make my heart an abandoned temple of some forgotten goddess, sculpted in your likeness-- overgrown by vines, scattered with unheard prayers--”

She grabbed him by the mouth mid-sentence, hearing only muffled cries from him as she pushed him against the stone wall and held her knife to his throat. 

“That’s better,” she grinned, tightening her hand over his lips, “without that troublesome tongue of yours, you’re nothing but a worm.” 

The warm weight of her thinly sheathed body pressing into him caused him to writhe vainly against her, but his movements were held carefully at bay by the fearful chill glinting from the edge of the knife, suspended light as a wire against the skin of his throat. He glanced at the trembling hand holding him fast to the wall, still leaking red, and his senses were tickled with panic-- knowing that the slightest spasm would have him writhing in his own blood, too.

“I see now. To let you pine endlessly while I passively receive your hopeless affections would be all too fitting a fate for you, so instead...” He could feel her lips near the entrance to his ear, her warm whisper drifting through the tunnels of his head, “I’ll swear that I love you, so deep is my hate. I’ll lie to you like you’ve lied to the court, like you lied your way into my chambers this morning...” 

His mouth tightened, and he could feel his whole body tensing under her as she searched around his robes. Grima gasped sharply as she ripped the handkerchief out from one of his pockets. “Don’t think I didn’t see what you were doing down there…” 

He tried to hide his obvious arousal, but the closeness of her body holding him in place made this impossible. He made a feeble attempt to squirm away before she secured a knee directly to his groin, digging in the hard steel sheath that was strapped to her leg so that it pinned him to the wall. He couldn’t help but moan slightly into her hand, reveling in the attention she gave to the area, cold and unyielding though it was. 

“I swear that’s the most honest sound I’ve ever heard you make…” She chuckled slightly as he cringed. 

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? Why else would you subject yourself to so demeaning a role as that of a traitorous pawn, bowing to all without loyalty to any? That is, if Eomer’s whisperings about you are true. He says you’re a pawn of the White Wizard, and quite frankly, I believe him. Why shouldn't I? Can you think of a reason?” She asked in a strangely pleasant tone, as if to mask the gravity of the question. 

There was only muffled gasps of response as Grima struggled to explain himself, to no avail. 

“I didn’t think so…I guess that means I’ll have to find a way to make you talk that you  _ won’t  _ enjoy.” 


End file.
